Picasso The Mediterranean Years at Gagosian Gallery London

From: ART REVIEWSDate: 09 Jun 2010Time: 07:23:39 -0500

Review

http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2010-06-04_picasso/
Lot of security guards in museum scale exhibition. Picasso is great. This shows what his mediocre work was like. Apart from a few paintings, some curious sculptures, and a nice series of bulls, this is the minor work of a major artist. Like a bunch of stuff that's kept in dealers back rooms all assembled in a flashy show which looks better on paper than in reality. Picasso often seems to be drawing a motif which will make his work look moderner (like his korean war painting) and then using his trademark crosshatching and scuffed paint without being wholehearted or really engaged, sketching you might say. There is a sense of a genius being lazy. Still extremely interesting to see the difference, what is the difference between his magical paintings, and the ones that just look like something done in his style. The x factor, visible by ommission.